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Topic: terrible nightmares... (Read 1973 times)

I have been having the worse nightmares. just now, I dreamed that my father lit my dogs on fire, and someone broke into my house and cut up my mom's face, killing her. now it's 4:30am, and I can't go back to sleep. I have liturgy in 5 hours. is there anyway to stop bad dreams?

Make the sign of the Cross, recite the Lord's Prayer...and DON'T allow them to "mess" with your mind. Don't dwell on them. If you can't sleep...get up and do something, read something...stop thinking about the nightmare... And DON'T "believe" any of it. Pray.

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Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

""Love is a dangerous thing. It will crush you if you trust it. But without it you can never be whole. Love crucifies, but love saves. We will either be saved together with love, or damned alone without it." Selam, +GMK+

Don't pay any attention to them. Your brain is somewhat starved of external stimuli while you sleep, so it only has information stored in memory to pass the time (bouncing signals back at itself).

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As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future.-- Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS

The best remedy for nightmares depends a lot on what sort of dream you had. The vast majority of dreams you have is your mind showing you pictures and playing through events just to keep it occupied. Some of these will be disturbing (especially if you watch horror movies, have been in war or a traumatic event, or have had other disturbing input) others will be benign and/or silly. Prayer is an important thing and praying right after a disturbing dream is a good idea in that you are turning to God when you are afraid. But ultimately, praying over bad dream is like praying when the dishes in the sink have developed a new form of mold or you spilled soda on the carpet. The best thing you can do after a disturbing dream is to find something to anchor you back into the real world. Pick a hobby or an interest and read about it for a bit. When I have a bad dream I either paint some model tanks or read about them. That way when I do back to bed I am thinking about the transmission on a T34 rather than my flaming cat setting my bed on fire.

Or, if prayer is the thing that helps you anchor then go for it. Just for me, if I am praying about something it is generally important, and the ultimate goal is to reduce the importance of the dream.

As a caveat, if the dream is about a man clothed in light telling you to do something, start praying and seek spiritual guidance.

well, it helped me to not be so shaken up to get my mind on REAL matters today at liturgy. I also had a dream after my original post that a man was offering me birth control, and I said "no thanks, I'm a monk".

I have been having the worse nightmares. just now, I dreamed that my father lit my dogs on fire, and someone broke into my house and cut up my mom's face, killing her. now it's 4:30am, and I can't go back to sleep. I have liturgy in 5 hours. is there anyway to stop bad dreams?

Put an Icon of a Saint you normally pray to under your pillow.

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Your idea has been debunked 1000 times already.. Maybe 1001 will be the charm

Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

My spiritual father always said 3am was the worse time for nightmares. His suggestion was to make the Sign of the Cross and go back to sleep. I've done that and I sleep like a baby tillthe alarm clock or my beagles wake me up. I used to have nightmares so bad I was afraid to go back to sleep.

But, for nighttime prayers, it's more common to say this prayer, blessing your bed with your cross (and sprinkling some holy water if you wish):

"Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Him flee from before His face! As smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish. As wax melteth before the fire, so let the demons perish from before the presence of them that love Christ, and who say with gladness, 'Rejoice, O most holy and precious Cross of the Lord, for thou drivest away the demons by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ Who was crucified upon thee, Who descended into hades and Who trampled on the power of the devil, and Who gave us thee, His precious, holy, and lifegiving Cross for the driving away of every adversary.' O most holy and lifegiving Cross of the Lord, help me together with the most holy Lady Theotokos and with all the saints, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen."

(I'm going from memory here, so it may be a bit off.)

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